They had planned another protest at the full council meeting on July 3 at Morpeth’s County Hall and were hoping to attract around 100 parents to march through the town with banners beforehand.

However, the council has announced the cancellation of the meeting, “due to insufficient business.”

A Labour source claimed there were no motions or questions, and the only business would have been approval of minutes. He also claimed the cancellation would save the council £18,000 in officer time and travel allowances among other costs. The next full meeting is planned for September.

However, Sue Patterson from Seahouses, whose son is due to start sixth form at Alnwick in September, said: “They must be running scared.”

She vowed: “We will do it again, they can cancel it but when they arrange it again, we will be there.”

Coun Peter Jackson, leader of the council’s Tory group, claimed Labour is seeking to “trying to avoid a public outcry” and “ducking out of public protests” over the transport issue, and also its previous claims - reported by The Journal - that all potholes in the county would be eradicated by June.

“It is just a sad day for democracy and a really sad day for Northumberland,” he said.

He said his group had planned to submit a motion to the meeting calling for the post 16 transport decision to be overturned and claimed the savings achieved by cancelling the meeting would be “peanuts” as most councillors and officers will be at County Hall anyway.

But council and Labour leader Grant Davey dismissed the suggestions. He said: “Against the backdrop of savage cuts imposed by the Conservative led coalition, we think the public would expect us to save money where we can.

“There is no council business for this meeting so we won’t have a meeting for having a meeting’s sake.

“The decision has been taken on post 16 travel so it’s somewhat misleading to say that the meeting has been cancelled due to that reason.

“The only link between the two decisions is that we’ve got to cut the council budget by a quarter over the next three years so we must change the way we operate as a council.”